I'm late, I'm late for a very important.... something

So I have always been the person that puts up their Christmas lights to turn on on Thanksgiving evening and then spends the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving decorating the trees and the rest of the house. (and yes that says trees with an "s")

But Brandi had a soccer tournament in St. George the weekend after Thanksgiving and we pretended to have a blizzard the week before Thanksgiving so the decorating didn't get done. Last week in the grocery store, a neighbor stopped me and wondered if I was ok because lights weren't on the house. Then when I got home another neighbor came over to ask the same thing. I got lights on the trees on the porch by Sat. night and on the house by Monday night. Yesterday I also got all the snowmen in the front entry. but that is as far as I have gotten. By the time I got home from work, after running a couple errands, it was time to go to Brandi's concert and then I needed to put Matt's Christmas box together to be shipped tomorrow so he will have it in time for Christmas and now it is time for bed.

 When am I supposed to decorate? Wed? I have class. Thursday? The boys have a concert. Friday? possible Saturday- I have to proctor the ACT, Brandi has a game, clean house (yet again) do the laundry and all that other stuff.  My goal is to have it done before I go to bed on Saturday. Really. But don't hold me to it. It just may be the year of sparse decor that I always threaten.

In other news- I was at Deseret Book and the woman in front of me was purchasing Key Lime Pie by Josi Kilpack. I asked her if she was buying for herself or someone else and had she read it yet? It was for her and she had not read this one, but had read the others and was excited to read it. As the conversation went on, I mentioned that I was part of the test kitchen and that Sandra's Chocolicious Frosting from Devil's Food Cake was my creation and named after me. She was so excited that she took the book out of the clerk's hand as he was bagging it, cleared the counter, handed me a pen and asked me to sign her book. She then left the store with it held to her heart and she was beaming from ear to ear. Sweet little old ladies, gotta love em. (Sure beats being told you are fat.)

And it yet still more news- I finished my gingerbread house. all of my kids did a house and so did my grandbabies. So far those are the only entries. Not very exciting when I give my family the prizes.  Don't forget you have until Friday to get me the pictures.  And don't be afraid to use the pre-baked ones from the store.

And the final piece of news- and I am doing this news because I don't know if I will be online tomorrow where I can share this, but
Happy Birthday tomorrow to the best daughter-in-law in the world!!! I love you.

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Indeed.

Christmas decorating

I stayed home from work again today. I got up ready to go to work, but quickly realized that I was still too weak to deal with jr. high students today. So, I stayed home and rested again today. I will probably still be tired tomorrow, but I think I will be able to make it.

That said, I want to talk about some of our Christmas traditions at my house. I love Christmas decorating. I love the perfect, coordinated Christmas trees, I love the hodge-podge trees that are filled with well loved and cherished heirloom decorations made with finger paint and gold painted macaroni. I love nativity scenes, stars, tinsle, lights, snowmen, glass balls, santas an all the trappings of the decorating.

I have been blessed to have a faily big house so I have the room for quite a number of decorations. The week of Thanksgiving, Jessica said, "Now comes the 4 weeks of not having any room to move because of the decorations." Well, that is true. I usually spend the 2 days after Thanksgiving decorating the house. But the day after, this year, we went to my sister's house and spent the entire day. And the Sat. after, was spent cleaning. So the decorating didn't get done. In fact, I had the boys get it all out into the garage the next weekend and then only did the snowmen in the front room, but only some of them.

Then I decided that I only wanted to do one tree this year. We would put up my tree upstairs, but with the family cherished decorations. The kids were having none of that- they WANTED both trees. And they actually cleaned the basement family room for their tree. So we put up both trees. (I really miss a real tree and the smell of it, but Blue Spruce are the only ones that don't trigger bronchitis like symptoms and they are so darn expensive!)

Then I decided to get out only a couple of the 30 or so nativities that I have collected. But then Matthew asked, "Aren't you going to get out the one that goes on the hall wall? The hall is being neglegted in the decorating." And I kept hearing "what about this, what about that?" over and over. When I said that I thought they would like not having it all out, they were really sad that I wasnt' getting it all out. So we comprimised, I still didn't get it all out, just most of it. So I guess the decorations are more important to the kids than I thought. I thought it was just me.

I'll take some pictures tonight and show you tomorrow.